TO do Colonel Kingsward justice, he was taken entirely by surprise by
Bee’s outburst. He had no remembrance of the name. The name had been
wholly unimportant to him even at the time when it had come under his
notice. The previous claimant to Aubrey Leigh’s affections had been “the
woman,” no more, to his consciousness. He did not remember anything
about the business now, except that there was a story about a woman, and
that he would not permit his young daughter to marry a man concerning
whom such a story existed. Even after Bee had left him, when he really
made an effort to pursue into the recesses of his mind anything that was
connected with that name, he could not make it out. Was it perhaps a
tyrannical governess? but that would not explain the girl’s vehement
outcry. He had not thought for a long time of Bee’s interrupted love,
and broken-off engagement. Of what consequence is such an episode to so
young a girl? And there were other matters in his mind of what seemed a
great deal more importance. Whatever was the source of Bee’s previous
knowledge of Miss Lance, she hated that singularly attractive woman, as
it is usual for the sex--Colonel Kingsward thought--to hate
instinctively every other woman who is endowed with unusual attractions.
What a magnificent creature that woman was! How finely she had talked of
the undeveloped boy to whom she had hoped to be of service, and with
what genuine feeling, half-abashed, distressed, yet not without a gleam
of amusement, she had told him of the wonderful scene at the end, when
Charlie had asked her to marry him.
“Me! A woman who might be his mother!” she had said, with beautiful
candour; though it was not candour, it was more like jest, seeing that
she was still young--young enough to turn any man’s head. And she had
added hastily, “It must have been my fault. Somehow I must have led him
astray, though I was so far from intending it. A boy like your son would
not have done such a wild thing had he not supposed----” She put up her
hands to her face to hide a blush. “That is the worst of us, poor
women,” she had said, “we cannot show an interest even in a boy but he
supposes--oh, Colonel Kingsward, can’t you imagine what I felt, wishing
solely to be of use to your son, who is such a good, ingenuous, _nice_
boy--and finding in a moment, without the least warning, that he had
mistaken me like _that_!”
Colonel Kingsward was of opinion, and so was everybody who knew him,
that he was by no means an impressionable man; but it would be
impossible to say how touched he had been by that explanation. And she
was so sorry for Charlie. She avowed that, after what had happened, she
would have considered herself inexcusable if she had not come to his
father, however unpleasant it might be to herself, to show him how
little, how very little, Charlie was to blame.
“You must not--must not be angry with him,” she had said, joining her
hands in appeal. “Oh, forgive him; it is so much my fault. If I could
but bear the penalty! But I cannot endure to think that the poor boy
should be punished when all the time I, who am so much older than he is,
am the one to blame. I ought to have known better. I am at your mercy,
Colonel Kingsward. You cannot say anything worse to me than I have done
to myself; but he, poor boy, is really not to blame.”
The Colonel had no wish to say anything to her that was uncomplimentary.
He entered into her position with the most unusual sympathy. Perhaps he
had never had so warm a feeling of understanding and affection for
anyone before. The compassion and the appeal was something quite new and
original to him. He was not a man to be sympathetic with the troubles of
a middle-aged spinster--an elderly flirt, as he would probably have
called her, had he heard the story at second hand; in such a case he
would have denounced the mature siren in the terms usual to men of
experience. But the presence of this lady made all the difference. She
was not like anyone else. The usual phrases brought forward on such
occasions were meaningless or worse in respect to her. He was softened
to Charlie, too, by the story, though he could have raved at his son’s
folly. The puppy!--to think a woman like that could care for him! And
yet, as she said, there was no harm in the boy; only absurdity,
presumption, the last depths of fatuity. Poor young fool! But it was a
different thing from racing towards the bottomless pit for the mere
indulgence of his own appetites, as so many young men did, and if this
was the only reason of Charlie’s downfall it involved no loss of
character and need make no breach in his career, which was the chief
thing. He could make up his lost ground, and the F.O. would care very
little for what the Dons said. The idleness of a boy in love (the puppy!
inexcusable in his presumption, but yet with plenty of justification at
least) could do him no more than temporary harm in any case.
These thoughts passed through the Colonel’s mind with a great sense of
relief. It did not occur to him that Charlie, when he saw his folly,
could have much difficulty in getting over such a misplaced sentiment.
It must be done, and the boy must feel that such a hope was as much
above him as was the moon in the skies. He must make up his mind to
apply himself, to get through his examination, to begin his real
life--which his father would certainly impress upon him was not mere
amusement or happiness, if he liked to call it so, but work and a sharp
struggle to secure his standing. As for his degree, that was a matter of
complete indifference to Colonel Kingsward. The boy had his experience
of Oxford life to talk of and fall back upon; he was a University man
all the same, though he had not been crowned by any laurels he had made
some friends, and he had gained the necessary familiarity with that
phase of a young man’s existence. What did the details matter, and who
would ever ask about his degree? An attaché does not put B.A. or M.A.
(which was which, or if there was any difference, or on what occasion
such vanities should be displayed the Colonel was quite unaware) to his
name like a schoolmaster. Nothing could be of less importance than this.
He dismissed Charlie from his mind accordingly with much relief. It was
not at all unnatural that the boy should have gone to town instead of
going to Kingswarden. No doubt by this time he had made his way home,
and this reminded the Colonel that it would be as well to send his
sister off at once to meet Charlie there. He called Bee again
accordingly from her room, where she had taken refuge, and instructed
her in what he desired.
“There is a train in an hour,” he said. “You had better get ready. I
wish you to go home at once. Charlie will be there by this time, I have
no doubt, and I should like you to let him know that if he is reasonable
and drives all folly from his mind, and addresses himself at once to his
preparation for the exam., he shall hear no more from me about the
Oxford business. It depends upon himself whether it is ever alluded to
again.”
“Papa,” said Bee, faltering a little, “am I to go alone?”
“Why shouldn’t you go alone? Are you afraid of getting into a cab at
Paddington and driving to Victoria, the most ordinary everyday business?
Why, I thought the girls of your period revolted against being
protected, and were able to take care of themselves wherever they went?”
Now Colonel Kingsward had always insisted on surrounding his daughters
with quite unnecessary care, being, as he prided himself, on all
questions in respect to women, of the old school.
“Oh, no,” said Bee, very tremulous, looking at him with eyes full of
meaning, “I am not afraid.”
“Then why do you make any fuss about it?” he said. “I shall stay behind
for a few hours, perhaps for another night. I must see whether he has
left any debts, and square accounts with the College, and--settle
everything.” Bee was still looking at him with that troubled air of
meaning, and he looked at her with a stern look, putting her down; but
there was in his eyes a certain understanding of her meaning and a
shrinking from her scrutiny all the same. “You have just time to get
ready,” he said, pulling out his watch and holding it up to her. And Bee
had nothing to do but to obey. It was not the drive from Paddington to
Victoria, the change from one railway to another, which frightened her,
though for a girl who had never done anything alone, that was not a
pleasant thought; but the girl was deeply disturbed to leave her father
there within the power of the woman whom more than ever she looked upon
with terror as if she had been an embodied Fate. How ludicrous was the
idea that a girl of twenty should be disturbed and anxious at the
thought of leaving her father unprotected by her poor little
guardianship--and such a father as Colonel Kingsward! Bee saw at once
the folly and futility of such a notion, but she could not rid herself
of the alarm. Her terror of this woman, now fully evident as the same
who had wrecked her own life, was more than ever a superstitious panic.
Bee’s mind was wholly possessed with this idea. She thought of the
beautiful, dreadful lady in Christabel. She thought of that other
shuddering image in the poem, of “the angel, beautiful and bright,” who
looked the hero in the face; “And how he knew it was a fiend, that
miserable knight----” Aubrey had not known she was a fiend, nor Charlie;
and now papa! What could such a woman do to papa? He was old (Bee
thought) beyond the reach of the influences which had moved the others.
What could Fate do to him? She asked herself this question in her great
alarm, trying to beat down the terror in her bosom, and persuade herself
that it was foolishness. But the more she thought the more her heart
beat with fright and apprehension. It seemed to her, somehow, as if the
former dangers had been nothing in comparison with this, although she
did not know what it was that she feared.
Colonel Kingsward walked with his daughter to the station, and he was
very affable and kind to her, taking unusual pains to make her feel that
there was nothing to fear. He selected carefully a carriage which was
reserved for ladies, and put her into the charge of the guard, whom he
desired to find a cab for her at Paddington, and look after her in every
way. Nothing could be more fatherly, more thoughtful than he was; but
all these precautions, instead of reassuring Bee, increased her
sensation of danger. For the Colonel, though he had always insisted upon
every precaution, had not been in the habit of personally seeing to the
comfort of his children. She followed him with her eyes as he occupied
himself with all these little cares, and explained to the guard what was
to be done. And then he went to the bookstall and bought her illustrated
papers and a book to amuse her on the journey, Bee watching all the time
with growing wonder. She gave a hurried glance now and then around her,
sweeping the station from one end to another, with a terror of seeing
somewhere appear the woman who had brought such pain and trouble into
her life--though this, too, was folly, as she was aware. And when at
last the carriage door was closed, and the train almost in motion, Bee
gave her father a last look, in which there were unutterable things. He
had not met her eyes hitherto, whether by chance or precaution. But now
he was off his guard and did so. Their looks encountered with a clash,
as if they had been meeting swords, the same eyes, brilliant with that
blue blaze, flashing like lightning. But it was the father’s fiery eyes
which gave way. The girl’s look penetrated into his very being; his
dropped, almost abashed. How did this strange change of position come
about? It was anything but reassuring to Bee. It seemed to her as if
already a new chapter of misery and dismay had opened in life, although
her fears had taken no shape, and she could not tell what calamity was
possible. The very vagueness made it all the more appalling to her
inexperienced heart.
As for Colonel Kingsward, he saw his little daughter go away with a
relief which he felt to be ridiculous. That Bee’s looks should affect
his movements one way or another was beyond measure absurd, and yet he
was relieved that she was gone, and felt himself more at ease. He had a
great many things to do--to settle his son’s accounts, to take his name
off the college books, to wind up that early unsuccessful chapter of
Charlie’s life. But he now felt very little real anger against
Charlie--this shipwreck of his had suddenly introduced his father to
what seemed a new view and new objects, which indeed he did not in any
way define to himself, but of which he felt the stimulus with vague
exhilaration to the bottom of his heart.